Heart's Safe Passage (38 page)

“I thought I could save him too.” Phoebe clasped Mel’s hand in both of hers. “Only Jesus can help him now, child. I failed him with my own weakness and inability to forgive.”

“Have you forgiven now?” Mel asked.

Phoebe opened her mouth to say yes, but she knew that wasn’t the truth. She saw Rafe walking away from her and knew she hadn’t forgiven him for not staying, for not giving up his dream of carrying out justice, for not loving her and his daughter enough. And if he didn’t return to her, or at least to Mel, Phoebe thought she might never find the strength to forgive him.

“Please.” Mel’s voice was so soft Phoebe had to lean over the bed to hear the child. “Please don’t be angry with him. My mither didn’t love him, and he is still trying to make her.”

“How do you know a thing like that? I mean—”

“Uncle Watt told me. He didn’t like Papa either.” Her fingers moved restlessly in Phoebe’s hold. “I just want my father home. Do you know I can’t read?”

“I do. We’ll teach you again.”

I’ll teach you again
, Phoebe amended in her head.

“Thank you.” Mel’s voice faded. Her breathing grew deeper and more even, and her hand went limp.

Phoebe backed away, nodded to the now wakeful maid, and slipped from the room.

Not hearing any whimpering or moaning from Belinda’s room, Phoebe leaned against the railing of the gallery and gazed out over the harbor. Torches and lanterns lit the scene in a carnival atmosphere of commerce and raucous merrymaking, from the street to the wharves to the vessels in the harbor. The French prize rode at anchor out there, a fat prize Derrick would sail to England the next day so the Admiralty court could decide on the value of the vessel itself. The cargo would go to market, an English market starved for French goods. All the men aboard would have extra money in their coffers in a few months. Rafe, as captain, would get the lion’s share. Or Mel in his place.

“Because you’re such a fool,” Phoebe ground out to the night, “you likely won’t come back.” She shook the railing in her frustration and anger. It creaked like ship’s timbers. “How could you do this to me?”

To her? Was that all she cared about? How Rafe and Gideon and Kenyon—that angry, hurting husband—treated her, how their behavior hurt her?

It wasn’t an easy admission to swallow—the truth of her selfishness. She didn’t think how Belinda missed the brother who had always been kind to her. Or how Mrs. Kenyon felt losing her baby and her husband in the same night. Or how much pain Rafe suffered having an uncle ruin a girl Rafe loved, then toss her away for him to gather up the pieces, being constantly told that he was not the one she wanted. Rafe had wanted a family and healing work like his father. He got a wife who didn’t love him, another man’s child, and a career his bride despised.

And all Phoebe had done was tell him in one breath that she loved him, and in the next breath how wrong he was. Like Davina, then Watt, Phoebe told him he wasn’t good enough, his decisions were inadequate. He needed to be some kind of fairy-tale hero slaying dragons. He would rather die accomplishing that than live being a mere father.

“And all I did was take out my anger with others on you.” Phoebe sank to her knees and dropped her forehead onto her hands still clasping the rail. “Lord, please be with him. Keep him safe. Heal his heart.” She took a shuddering breath. “And mine. I don’t care if he doesn’t come back to me. Just please bring him back to You.” Her voice broke as she prayed. Fear, anguish, and the remnants of old anger spilled out in a silent torrent of tears. She didn’t know if she continued to pray anything coherent. All she heard in her head was,
Lord, break my heart of stone.

When the tears dried and a cry from Belinda’s room prompted Phoebe to return to her patient, she felt broken, or at least like a log someone had hollowed out to use as a drainpipe. She prayed that maybe, just maybe, she was a vessel through which God’s love would flow, cleansing, healing, and spilling over onto others.

But her deep repentance had come too late to help Rafe, to convince him of his need for the same. She’d ruined that with her anger and bitterness spilling over instead.

Shaken, aching with regret, she returned to Belinda’s side. “I’m sorry I was gone so long. How are you doing?” As she asked the question, she went to the pot of water keeping warm by the fire and poured some into a basin to wash her hands.

Belinda shifted in the bed, sheets rustling in the quiet room. “I don’t think I’m doing well. The pains are worse.”

“That’s normal, Bel.” Phoebe returned to the bed and lifted the sheet. “Let me look.”

“If you must.” Belinda squeezed her eyes shut, her mouth in a grim line.

Phoebe smoothed her hands over Belinda’s belly, then gave a more intimate exploration. Belinda sucked in her breath, but not from pain—from humiliation. Phoebe ignored the wordless protests and continued, touching, stroking, going back to the basin to wash.

“I think the baby is finally turning the right way, Bel.”

“But it’s—” She gasped, and fabric tore.

Phoebe whipped around to see Belinda gripping the sheet so hard she’d ripped it.

“I’m . . . sorry.” Belinda began to cry. “I’m sorry I brought you along. I’m sorry I let this happen to me. I want my husband here so I can cuff him.”

Phoebe didn’t succeed in hiding her chuckle.

“I mean it. I can’t do this.”

“You don’t have a choice right now, and you’ll forget once you hold your baby.” Phoebe took a damp cloth from a second basin and wiped Belinda’s face. “Every mother does.”

“Not me. This had better be a boy. I don’t want more children.”

“I do.” Phoebe stared at the knotty paneling on the far wall without seeing anything other than half a dozen children with hair as red as garnets. “I always have.”

“Oh, Phoebe, I’m so sorry.” Belinda clasped Phoebe’s hand in both of hers, relaxed now. “I never thought about you. I’d rather die than my baby.”

“I would have too. But God has other plans for me.”

If only they were clear.

“I’m sorry about all those things I said about you.” Belinda squeezed Phoebe’s fingers, but in reaction to the pains of labor this time. “I didn’t know things were so awful for you.”

“Your brother was good to you.”

“Yes, everyone is.” Belinda wiped tears from her eyes. “I don’t deserve it.”

“What are you saying?” Phoebe moved across the room to pour a cup of tepid tea for herself and a glass of water for Belinda. “You don’t deserve the other—people being unkind to you.”

“No, but—oh, Phoebe.” Belinda cried out, clutching at her belly. “I’ve done a terrible thing.”

“I can’t imagine that to be true.”

Other than forcing Phoebe to go along to sea with her, but Phoebe couldn’t think that too awful now.

“It is, I tell you.”

“Hush. Getting agitated won’t help you or the baby.” Phoebe carried the water to Belinda. “Let me help you sit up straighter.”

Belinda pushed the glass away. “No, no, don’t try to placate me. You must listen to me. I can’t die without telling you.”

“You’re not going to die.” Phoebe spoke with conviction. Now that the baby was finally turning head-down, Belinda was indeed likely to live. “No more of that talk.”

“But it happens. You’ve seen it happen, haven’t you?” Belinda’s eyes darted from side to side as though seeking death lurking in the corners. “I’ve heard talk.”

“Yes, it happens more often than we’d like. But you’re young and strong, and everything will be as it should.”

“But just in case.” Belinda focused her gaze on Phoebe’s. “Please listen.”

Phoebe sank onto her stool. “All right. What did you do? Spend too much of George’s money? Lose his business money?”

“Certainly not,” Belinda snapped. “His company has done well. His partners are happy—or will be once he’s free.”

“Then I can’t think what it could be, since I already know you lied about how far your condition was advanced. I’d have kept us on Bermuda if—”

“Stubble it, Phoebe. It’s about being in Virginia.” Belinda struggled to turn on her side and prop herself on one elbow so she could look into Phoebe’s face. “James Brock came to see me there. You know he’s one of George’s investors.”

“I know.” Coldness seeped through Phoebe’s bones despite the roaring fire. “It’s why Rafe will help him get out of prison, to persuade George to tell him where Brock hides.”

“Yes, well—” Belinda sank back onto the mound of pillows behind her and flung her arm over her face. “It’s not George who knows where Brock is. I just told Captain Docherty that so he’d get him out of that prison. But I’ve known all along where to find Brock when he’s this side of the Atlantic.”

24

The following night was as dark as a new moon and cloud cover could make it. With lanterns extinguished, the prison guards would not be able to see three rowboats bobbing downstream a hundred yards away. Though the guards, underpaid and mistreated themselves, had been paid not to see anything out of the ordinary that night, men waiting for the tide to carry three prisoners toward freedom would be all too much for them to ignore.

Downstream and downwind. The stench from the dismasted ship turned into a floating prison for Frenchmen and Americans sucked the air from Rafe’s lungs. Every man in the boats attempted to breathe through his mouth and not cough.

“How does they bear it?” one man whispered.

Rafe elbowed him in his ribs gently, a reminder to keep quiet. Whispers traveled over water like shouts. Guards could claim they saw nothing on a dark night, but not to hear anything stretched credulity.

Rafe strained his ears for the sounds he wanted to hear, a faint splash no louder than a wave from the outgoing tide tossing against the hull. He gripped the gunwales, ready to lean the opposite way the instant other hands grabbed for the side of the boat, ready to signal the men to haul in the prisoners. They had practiced in Southampton Harbor the night before, after taking the Frenchmen ashore at Portsmouth for the Admiralty to take care of. But his crew was strong, well-fed, and exercised. These men would be sick with hunger and cold, weak from confinement. They might not get away, might fall on their way down the side of the hulk, might drown during the short swim.

Tension radiated through Rafe like the moments before a battle. He expected no fighting. He feared Chapman might not arrive for rescue. Rafe could never go back to Belinda and tell her he had failed to save her husband. He wouldn’t have Brock either, and his mission would have failed. But more than the moment he anticipated—facing James Brock with the odds in favor of Rafe Docherty instead of the unpleasant surprise of the ambush on Bermuda—he kept seeing Belinda’s drawn countenance and her pleas for her husband. For him to bring back her husband.

And Phoebe. Rafe couldn’t put Phoebe’s face out of his mind—calm and tear-streaked, her sweet, smooth voice pleading with him to stay, to not commit treason. But he had left her. He wanted Belinda to have her husband, if she had survived childbirth. Her husband was American. Rafe and his crew could be hanged for rescuing Americans from prison. Even if he got away, he could never stay in England. He would have to go to America.

And James Brock divided his time between his homeland and other parts unknown. Unknown to Rafe. Not unknown to his business partner George Chapman.

George would be able to go home—home with his wife and bairn, a good deed for Rafe to have accomplished at the least. Perhaps God would show him some mercy for that. But not likely. Rafe would have shown James Brock no mercy. Only justice.

A justice that saddened Phoebe. A justice she wanted him to leave to God, along with his hatred. But he couldn’t let Davina down again. He must see this to the end.

He tried to conjure Davina’s face growing ravaged from her lung disease but still holding much of its beauty. It blurred before his mind’s eye as though behind a gauzy veil. But he heard her cries, her begging for mercy—mercy from the pirates and from their mistreatment, mercy from God for her sins. Mercy . . . Mercy . . .

So why did he think she wanted justice in the form of Brock’s death? No matter now. He wanted it so he could set his memories to rest.

He gripped the gunwales hard enough to score his palms on the edges.
Do not fail me, Chapman
, Rafe mouthed.

The hulk of the prison rose against the horizon, a blacker shape against the blackness. Wind, damp and chill, ruffled the Thames estuary, sending up the sparkle of saltwater phosphorescence, splashing against the Kentish mudflats, the prison, the rowboats. One, two, three. Men slipping down the anchor chains, or mere waves. Four, five, six. More waves? Too many escaping prisoners for the
Davina
’s men to haul away.

The rowboat rocked, tilted to windward. Rafe leaned the opposite way. Men grabbed the swimmer and hauled him aboard.

Despite the swim, the stench of the river came with the man. His saviors released him and moved as far away as possible, which wasn’t far enough.

“Sorry.” The murmur was distinctly American. “Maybe you could haul me along behind.”

“Quiet,” Rafe commanded.

More splashing. A few rank odors indicated others joining them.

“How many?” Rafe asked.

“Six.” The escapee sighed like the night wind. “We couldn’t leave them behind to rot in there.”

“No, of course not. We’ll do our best not to sink.”

Or still be in the estuary dragging along their boats when dawn struck. Once seen, they would be pigeons for the plucking if anyone from the prison or Navy saw them. The Americans couldn’t disguise their accents. Nor could the French. Especially the French.

“Any Frenchmen?” Rafe inquired.

“No, sir. We didn’t have truck with the French.”

“Chapman?” Rafe couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“He was beside me swimming,” the American said. “Expect he made it.”

“You’d best pray he did.” Rafe bowed toward the men with the oars. “Shove off. We need to be back—”

Flashes of light upriver preceded the bark of gunfire. The guards giving a show of force, a pretense of trying to get their prisoners back or drown them.